Now I must bury the animal, and if you will you can help me." Without waiting for any objection on Polykarp's part, he hurried from stone to stone up to the plateau on the precipitous edge of which he had first seen Sirona.

The younger man followed him breathlessly, and only joined him when he had already begun to dig out the earth with his hands at the foot of a cliff.

Polykarp was now standing close to the anchorite, and repeated his question with vehement eagerness, but Paulus did not look up from his work, and only said, digging faster and faster: "Come to this place again to-morrow, and then it may perhaps be possible that I should tell you." "You think to put me off with that," cried the lad.

"Then you are mistaken in me, and if you cheat me with your honest-sounding words, I will--" But he did not end his threat, for a clear longing cry distinctly broke the silence of the deserted mountain: "Polykarp--Polykarp." It sounded nearer and nearer, and the words had a magic effect on him for whose ear they were intended.
With his head erect and trembling in every limb, the young man listened eagerly.

Then he cried out, "It is her voice! I am coming, Sirona, I am coming." And without paying any heed to the anchorite, he was on the point of hurrying off to meet her.